Lessons from a Mexican children’s home

My youngest daughter Charissa, a recent Salem High School graduate, is doing a “gap year” before going to college next year. She is working at a children’s home in the town of Vicente Guerrero, Mexico, where 80 kids live. She works in “The Cuna,” the house for babies through 3-year-olds. We recently Face-timed her as she walked through the house with a toddler on her hip. Then she paused, set the phone down and, still holding the toddler, we could see her reaching back and forth for something. “What are you doing?!” we asked. “The laundry,” she replied.

So here’s my 18-year-old daughter, in Mexico, in charge of nine babies and toddlers, changing the laundry over as she Face-times with her parents in Michigan. Now I believe my daughter is incredibly capable, but it does speak to an immense need that an 18-year-old is in charge of so much, so constantly, even when she’s calling her parents!

For those of you who do missions trips, my daughter has developed some opinions since she’s been at the children’s home. She says that most people who come down want to play with the kids, but it is actually most helpful if they clean or paint or cook or, say, do the laundry, so the staff — whom the kids know — can do their jobs with the kids.

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, we flew to San Diego, rented a car and drove the five hours south to visit our daughter. What we saw there was quite inspiring. Of the nine kids in “The Cuna,” the five youngest babies do not stay there overnight. Instead, staff members — who teach in the school or work in the medical clinic or some such job during the day — keep those babies overnight in their apartment or trailer so the baby has a more family-like atmosphere and they don’t wake up the other kids if they cry at night. This is Christian compassion at its most inspiring.

Returning home was something of an ordeal. Going in, we had passed through Tijuana with no trouble, seeing three different tent cities of migrants along the road. But Sunday, as we drove north, about two hours into our trip, we heard that the border crossing at Tijuana had been closed. So instead, we headed toward the crossing at Tecate, about 50 miles east of Tijuana. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. After waiting in line for five hours, 20 minutes, we missed our flight from San Diego. We’re home now, but with all that we saw in Mexico — from the children’s home to the people fleeing their homes because of violence and poverty — it reminded us that this is not a time to just live for ourselves. This is a time to give and go and serve and love and show compassion for a world where there is so much need.

The Rev. Dean Johnson is senior pastor at Lake Pointe Bible Church in Plymouth. Email him atDeanLPBC@ sbcglobal.net.

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